Black Lives Matter street signs return outside Governor’s Mansion

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) – If you take a drive through Springfield, there’s all kinds of plaques, signs and statues honoring important historical people and events in the city.

Just outside the Governor’s Mansion along Fourth and Fifth Streets at Jackson Street, signs reading Black Lives Matter SPI Way are back in their spots.

“I’m happy to just definitely see them back up,” Shawn Gregory, Ward 2 Alderman, said. “It doesn’t take away from the continuing fight that we have to engage in with not only all the things that Black Lives Matter stands for, but investment in Black and Brown communities throughout our country.”

The street signs were first put up in 2021 following demonstrations, a car procession and protests in Springfield in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in 2020. The city council passed a resolution marking May 31st as Black Lives Matter Solidarity Day putting up the street signs in honor of it.

“We wanted to come out now and show our solidarity for him, but we also wanted to make sure that we put action behind that,” Gregory said.

Fast forward to June of this year: the signs were taken down, a month before Sonya Massey was killed by a Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy . The Office of Public Works said it happened because of a work order that was issued, but community leaders say they weren’t told about it.

“Although it may not have been an intentional connection, it was definitely an unintentional connection,” Sunshine Clemons, the co-founder and co-president of the Black Lives Matter Springfield chapter, said. “It made the community feel that this was just another sort of slap in the face after the murder of Sonya Massey to then have our street signs removed when it kind of became public knowledge.”

Earlier this month, the city council passed an ordinance to put the signs back up. They returned to their spots the same day Springfield leaders joined President Joe Biden at the White House when he designated the site of the 1908 Race Riot as a national monument.

That same day, Sangamon County announced the creation of a commission to address systemic issues following Massey’s death.

“To have our signs go up on the same day as all of these other momentous things is just a point that needs to be celebrated and it is another point of recognition that Black lives do matter,” Clemons said.

With the ordinance the city council passed, the street signs will remain in their places permanently unless the council takes any action to change that.

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